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The Sharpest Tool in Your Drawer
Speaking only for myself, I nominate my Fein Multimaster. (I’m not sure if the one in the link is exactly what I have; it may be a newer model. But it looks the same):
I bought it several years ago when the guy I enlisted to install my new set of stairs showed me his. (No, for those of you who are wondering, I did not have to show him mine first.)
By the time he turned up, I’d already worked my way through three different multitools, ones made by Dremel, Rockwell, and DeWalt. (Love DeWalt. It was my only major DeWalt disappointment.) All those ended up being gifted to Habitat for Humanity, which ought to establish some sort of “Platinum Patron” level on my behalf.
But the stair guy showed me a new level of accessorizing and control, and I totally fell for it. And I’ve been very pleased ever since.
The Fein is expensive. And the special-purpose blades, while wicked sharp, and wicked efficient, are wicked expensive. I tried a “FitzAll” brand a couple of years ago and it lasted about five minutes and then gave up the ghost, so now I just suck it up and buy in bulk.
What’s the sharpest tool in your drawer? (Speaking literally, not figuratively, gentlemen).
PS: For those who don’t know, I’m a power tool junkie. And I know what to do with them all. I was devastated to discover, about a week ago, that DeWalt makes a 20v Li-Ion band saw which must have missed. (I thought I had all the DeWalt 20v cordless tools.)
The two proudest days of my life–aside from the day I got married, and the day I became a grandmother–were the day a registered electrician looked at the entry-point into the house breaker box which I had completely rewired, and said “this is the best job of something like this I’ve ever seen,” and the day that the construction guy who does my drywall looked at my preliminary work and said, “this really isn’t bad.” (Full disclosure: he’s a nice guy, but a bit of a pig, and we started off on a bad note when I asked him to take a look at something I’d done and he said, “you mean so I can tell you if you did it right?” Since then, we’ve both mellowed. Just as well. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure there’d have been blood. And probably more of his than mine.)
Published in General
I do stop in now and again.
An Arahant sighting!
Good to have you back!
First, this is an awesome post!
Second, my sharpest tool is my Zwilling J.A. Henckels chef knife. It’s got a 6-inch blade, I keep it as sharp as I can and it was the only truly sharp knife I owned for years, so I can use it for almost any cooking application. I absolutely love it.
We try to get to as many Ricochet Meetups as possible. You wouldn’t believe how much fun everyone is in person!
You blew your chance!
At least… ohh, forget it.
From a few days ago, it was sharper than me.
OK, I think you’ve waited long enough to garnish all the sympathy available. Go ahead and wash it off and put a bandaid on it.
Ugh. On that note, though, I have to say that the few times I’ve cut myself with the sheep shears, which are pretty sharp, and as a result of which I have one or two rather interestingly-shaped scars on my hands–fortunately, the stitchers-upper at Washington Hospital are quite good–the really painful injuries are those that occur as a result of a dull or blunt instrument not being used as intended. Thinking about the time, a week or so after I
acquiredrescued the second Great Pyrenees (so about a decade ago), when I was putting her on a leash and she saw something moving on the other side of the screen door (a leaf, a dust bunny, a bumble-bee, something like that I expect), and took off, almost taking the door with her as she went. My hand was trapped in the leash, and as it opened, the end of the handle of the screen door dug itself through the palm of my hand like a scoop through ice cream, and I was impaled. Absolutely the worst in the way of pain and shock.Another good job stitching, though:
I’ve never been terribly good at manicure routines, and it shows. Oh, well.
You have lovely hands, they are hands that do.
Manicures often kind of freak me out. Some women pretty much have claws, while extra long nails in general are the high-heels of the fingers; hobbles that barely allow for office work.
While I’m on the subject, I recall that earlier ATM machines tended to have the ‘5’ key gouged into, as though it was repeatedly attacked by birds.
The funny part of it, was that I cut myself inside a data center – so I had to wait for the blood to clot before I could use the bio metric scanner (fingerprint) to exit the data center. So I got a folding chair at the security booth and had to sit there for a 1/2 hour before I could get to the bathroom to wash up. The photo was a couple of hours after I cut myself.
So, if you cut yourself worse, then what? Are they administratively incapable of getting you out, or getting help to you?
No it took the guard on duty, a half hour to realize he could – so he had to phone the control center (in Toronto) to get permission to override the bio metrics.
There are pretty serious laws about locking people inside buildings.
Fire doors exist. but the alarm has be pulled for them to open. Data Centers are secure faculties and have different rules.
Which reminds me of a joke:
These two girls were out walking when they came upon a Scotsman in full regalia sleeping under a tree. Curious to know what a Scotsman wears under his kilt, they had a look. Surpressing giggles, one of them said, “Let’s let him know someone looked.” The girl took a ribbon from her hair and attached it to the Scotsman, then they lowered his kilt and ran off.
An hour later, the Scotsman woke and decided he had to use the bathroom. He stood at the tree, lifted his kilt, and saw a blue ribbon tied to him. He smiled and said, “I don’t know where you been Laddie, but I see you won first prize!”
LOL, @stad. You win the prize for my first good laugh of the week.
It’s an old joke, but one I always liked. It’s also one of the few clean jokes I know, and it’s borderline depending on how descriptive you get when you tell it . . .
Also a song:
It’s off-color, but you get to pick the tonal quality.
Here is the song:
Brian Bowers version.